This R13 Conference Grant is being submitted to support the 17th International Workshop on the Enzymology and Molecular Biology of Carbonyl Metabolism to be held in Pennsylvania between, July 8- July 12, 2014. The workshop takes place biannually alternating between a foreign and US venue. The workshop was last held in US in 2010 and thus four years have passed since US attendees have had easy access to the meeting. The focus of the meeting is on the four major enzyme superfamilies involved in the metabolism and detoxication of carbonyl containing substrates: the alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH); the aldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDH), the short-chain dehydrogenase/reductases (SDRs); and the aldo-keto reductases (AKRs). The first two families are intimately involved in the metabolism and toxicity resulting from ethanol ingestion; and all four families play roles in the elimination of toxic aldehydes and ketones. Each family is introduced followed by an in-depth discussion of structure-function and mechanistic enzymology. The roles of individual members of each superfamily are then discussed in terms of health and disease. This includes roles in: alcohol abuse and alcoholism; metabolism of by-products of lipid peroxidation; metabolism of ligands for nuclear receptors (e.g. retinoids, steroid hormones); and roles in diabetes, carcinogenesis and oncogenesis. The application of modern approaches including bioinformatics, functional genomics, gene knock-out and knock-in, expression profiling and proteomics and metabolomics will be emphasized. The Conference attracts senior scientists who are expert in their respective fields but new investigators are encouraged to attend along with pre- and post-doctoral fellows. Every attendee has the opportunity to present either orally or in poster format. This application is solely to support the travel of trainees. It is the cultur of the meeting that there are no invited speakers who are paid to attend. Rather senior scientists pay their own way. This keeps meeting costs down and with sponsorship allows the organizers to invest all funds to offset the travel of the trainees. No other conference exists which brings investigators in these fields together. The workshop has a rich history of making unique contributions: gene/protein family nomenclature takes its origins from the workshop and over half the participants have either collaborated or published together as a result of participating i one or more conferences. We anticipate 100-120 attendees to attend the 4.5 day conference with nearly one half being trainees. We seek support for at least 20 trainees to attend the conference.